Page 70 - Olympism in Socialism

than rising and falling through supply and
demand. Although the GDR had to pay
substantial war reparations to the Soviets, it
became the most successful economy in
the Eastern Bloc. Emigration to the West was a
significant problem as many of the emigrants
were well-educated young people
and weakened the state economically. The
government fortified its western borders and
built the Berlin Wall in 1961. Many
people attempting to flee were killed by border
guards or booby traps such as landmines. Those
captured spent large amounts of time imprisoned
for attempting to escape.
In 1989, numerous social, economic and
political forces in the GDR and abroad, one of the
most notable ones being the peaceful protests
starting in the city of Leipzig, led to the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the establishment of a
government committed to liberalization. The
following year, a free and fair election was
held and international negotiations led to the
signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the
status and borders of Germany. The GDR
dissolved itself and reunified with West Germany
on 3 October 1990, becoming a fully sovereign
state in the reunified Federal Republic of
Germany. Several of the GDR's leaders, notably
its last communist leader Egon Krenz, were
prosecuted by the Federal Republic after
reunification for offenses committed during the
Cold War.
Geographically, the GDR bordered the Baltic
Sea to the north, Poland to the
east, Czechoslovakia to the southeast and West
Germany to the southwest and west. Internally,
the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-
occupied Berlin, known as East Berlin, which

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